Greetings Friends ...

Ah, the holidays.   A time for good cheer, well wishes, peace and love.   It is a time when loved ones typically send letters telling of fun-filled times in the year passed, of milestones and celebrations.   Sleigh bells ringing, carolers singing . . . stop.   You’ll find none of that here.   This, my friends, is the un-Christmas letter.   It is the letter telling of mishaps, fumbles and foibles.   A miscalculation of chemicals in the pool sent the children screaming, their eyes stinging, dog poop flinging, car doors dinging.   This is our holiday song.   Some eight years ago while reporting successful potty training and book writing Robb protested that no one wants to read about all the great things happening to other people.   You want the stinging, the flinging and the dinging.   No singing, no ringing.   And so, this is our report of woe from 2004 – making you realize how much more you have to be grateful for.   It cou...

Greetings! The annual Allred holiday letter has always been a bad one. Yes, bad because we like it that way. The tradition started in the late ‘90s when Robb reviewed one of my letters with disgust and announced no one wants to read happy news. People want to hear the bad stuff, thus lifting their own spirits. To prove him wrong, I wrote everything that went bad that year – and the letter was a hit. But we don’t need to tell you this year was tough, filled with tragedy and heartbreak. The fall of the Saddam Hussein statue was good to watch but at a great price. It’s hard to find things to joke about. As war broke out, my father (ret. Col. Marc Powe) worked alongside General Garner for the Organization for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs in Baghdad. After a three-month tour, he did manage to come home just before his father (my Daddydaddy) died. Nonetheless, we will try to recap some of the old flavor of Christmas letters past with the trivial mishaps of our lives. The yea...

Dear Friends and Family – It’s that time again – the world according to Robb. It’s a dark and bleak place. For our newer friends, let me explain. Robb opposes holiday letters that spread cheer and happiness. He insists that people really want to hear bad news. I relented, no longer writing our joyous happenings, and now relay only the really crummy things that have happened to us so that, in comparison, yours might be a brighter and happier holiday. It is our gift to you. I sprained my ankle in March chasing after Tommy when he was in his phase of breaking out of the house and running to the creek. It still hurts today. Katie got bucked off of our horse, Star, and still carries a scar on her back. We are lucky she was not trampled. Sosi (our lab mix) died, and, very recently, I discovered that Pete, our new black lab, has been eating Nala’s incontinence pills. So, she’s pee peeing in her sleep, and he’s turning into a camel. Kerri caught me creeping into her room acting on behalf...

Christmas 2001 Here we go again. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the annual Allred holiday letter, its purpose is this: People want to know about unpleasant things. So, in that holiday spirit: The new year started with a bang when I got food poisoning from Jenny Craig’s beef stew. My fault, not Jenny’s. My clue of more than a year’s past due expiration date should have let me know what horrible things would happen to me if I chose to eat expired beef. But some of us always have to learn the hard way. I was so desperately ill I thought I would die. I wanted to die. As I slipped in and out of consciousness, Robb whispered to me, “Is there any stew left?” He wanted to test his long-running streak of not throwing up (not since January of 1991). Do you know how rude it is to ask a dying person such a question? But because he’s so stupid, I had to ask Michelle (my sister), through ragged whispers, to get rid of the toxic stew so he wouldn’t do himself in. We moved to Midl...

Christmas 2000 Christmas 2000 Season’s Greetings! Well, it’s that time of year again, and as many of you know, we have our very own Grinch. For those of you who are new to the Allred holiday letter, husband Robb has set a precedent for us: No cheery news. No one, he says, likes to read how happy other people are or how swell things are going. So, it has become our tradition to bring our own doom and gloom into your homes, making all your lives seem just a bit better. What Robb could not have foreseen was how wildly popular this letter would be. Last year, I sent it to a number of his co-workers. As it turned out, just before a big meeting, Robb’s boss opened the event by reading aloud the Allred holiday letter. And for those of you who know the freakishly private Robb Allred – which makes many stop to ponder the union between said freak and myself – this was a painful meeting for Robb. The glances of amused coworkers seared into Robb’s flesh as he was sure they were taking a ...

Christmas 1999 Dear Friends and Family – Our third baby, Tommy, was born this past summer, and I sent out a letter to all sharing news of our new addition and how well things were going. I – regretfully – did not show this letter to Robb. Despite his ongoing delusion that wives should always consult husbands, I mailed out the letter without his review. Days later, he called me from work. He asked about “this letter” I sent out. It seems that some friends and coworkers commented on the letter. Probably, foolishly, they thought they were being polite. So, I read the letter to Robb, and he groaned. Everything, he said, was entirely too happy. People don’t want to hear happy things, he said. People don’t want to know about how great things are going for other people, he said. “Why do you think people always put out holiday letters,” I asked. “People want to know how you’re doing.” Not so, said he. He said people want to hear something like, “We’re headed for a divorce, and our child...